Please forgive me. I am a true rookie when it comes to real computer issues.
Simply put,  I took my HP Pavilion a820n with a Pentium 4 processor 3.2 Ghz to a local computer shop. They determined my problem was the mother board. They replaced it and I have had nothing but problems. A friend walked my throught some things and I have peiced together that I now have a PC Chip A31G motherboard with a Mobile AMD Athlon XP-M processor.
I was supposed to have a comparable mother board and CPU installed. Did I get it?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.Well, I would certainly take it back until they PRODUCE a workable machine.

PC Chips is the low end of the motherboard food chain, and it sounds like you got an equally low end chip to replace a P4 3.2 gig. We don't KNOW what speed you got, but if you can run Everest Home and make a report you will find out.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.htmlThe XP-M is a pretty decent chip.
Very overclockable too.
As GX1 said, it does depend what speed it is.
An Everest report would help us determine whether it is comparable or not.The word "mobile" is confusing me. Doesn't that mean it's for a laptop? :-?Yes, but it can just as easily be used in a desktop.O.K. I ran Everest. It clocks the CPU speed as 1599.75 MHz. FSB is 199.97 MHz. The box for the board and the specs online say it has a FSB of 800 MHz but the manual says 400.  Now Everest says 200.
Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like I got stuck with about half the computer I used to have.
BTW, when I check windows task manager the CPU usage is CONSTANTLY spikeing to 100%. I THINK the processor is one issue, the moherboard is a bigger one and there are probably others.Thanks for all of your help. I think I'm gonna back up my hard drive externally and take this thing back. I'm figuring I'll just amke them take back their trash board and processor and I'll take the machine and old mother board to an "authorized HP service center". I figure at least they can get and (hopefully) properly install the right stuff.
Thanks again for all of your help Calum and GX1_Man.It's definitely slower than your old one.
Take it back and get a new one.
As for whatever assistance I could PROVIDE . . . happy to help.